An important item in many exercise rooms is a bench used in conjunction with other gear, particularly, dumbbells and barbells. One exercise performed with dumbbells and the bench are referred to as “flies” where the user lies back down on the bench and, holding a dumbbell in each hand, extends his arms out to his side or over his head. (like a bird flapping its wings).
Such benches are typically provided with a bar at one end of the bench that “hooks” the users legs and enables him to perform situps and back extensions.
In another version of a bench, the bench can be “fixed” at a selected tilt so that the user can perform presses with his body tilted at a selected angle.
These features permitting exercises at various inclination of the body are performed to stress the musculature in various ranges of motion so as to provide a full body workout.
The present state of the art tiltable bench comprises an upholstered pad intended to support the back of the user. The pad is supported by a hinge to a frame that permits tilting the pad like a seesaw. A second pad is also hinged to the frame that is tiltable and supported by a separate support mechanism. In order for the user to change the tilt of the bench, the user must pull spring loaded pins to disengage the pins from locating holes in the frame and hold the spring loaded pins out with one hand while moving the back rest and/or seat apparatus to a new position with the other hand. Some of these designs incorporate supporting braces which connect at one end to the pad and the other to a position of the bench to provide needed support for the pad. These support bars must be manually relocated for each new angle selected.
A problem with using the popit pin to engage the changing mechanism is that the nature of the design including a popit pin fitting into a hole is that the tolerance on the hole diameter must be very loose in order that the popit pin may move can move freely in and out of the engagement hole without being stuck or hard to pull. The looseness results in “play” or movement in the holding mechanism and makes the bench feel unstable to the user.
Another problem with the design of the prior art is a design limitation wherein the separately hinged seat is not always aligned with the backrest pad when the seat is oriented to near a 90 degree angle. When the angle between back rest and seat in the incline position is greater is greater than 95 degrees, the user has a tendency to slide down the seat while lifting heavy weight due to the center of gravity change while lifting from the shoulders and above and is forced to use his legs for stability that should be provided by the seat thus taking away focus and energy from the muscle group being exercised.
Another problem with the prior art is the inability of the bench to assume a complete range of angles a lifter might desire. These angles are commonly referred to as: incline, decline, flat and seated shoulder press positions.”
Another problem with the prior art is the ability of the bench seat to be adjustable in height in relation to the floor so that users of different body sizes and the seat height that feel best for them individually. It is important that a lifter have his feet flat on the floor for maximum stability and a lifter with shorter legs should be able to move the seat down for to a lower position for that purpose while doing “incline presses.”
Another problem with the prior art is inability to move Plug-in attachments higher and lower in relation to the floor. For instance, a leg extension-leg curl attachment of the prior art is set at a fixed height due to an inability of the support mechanism on the bench to go up or down relative to the floor. This causes a problem for a person with long legs and needing more floor clearance for leg extension.
Another problem with the prior art is lack of ability for the bench to be used as an abdominal exerciser with the ability to incrementally adjust the angle of gravitational resistance and thus increase or decrease the level of physical difficulty to perform the exercise.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,030,324 to McBride discloses a bench having three legs (one leg on each end and a central leg that is positionable at three fixed angles of tilt.
This construction permits a selection of three angles of tilt, being a vertical back, a horizontal back and a slanted back.
U.S. Pat. Des. 425,153 discloses a tiltable bench comprising an upholstered back fixed to a seat that is supported by a hinge so that the seat and back are tiltable relative to a base. A plate with a semicircular array of holes is vertically mounted onto and extends downward from the bottom surface of the seat. The semicircular array of holes has a centerline of rotation that is coincident with the axis of rotation of the seat bench structure. A springloaded popit plunger, mounted on the frame of the bench, normally engages one of the holes of the array thereby securing the bench at the selected angle. In order to change the tilt of the bench, the user withdraws the popit pin and rotates the bench to a new tilt angle. Then he releases the popit pin to secure the bench at the selected tilt angle.
A problem with this design of the bench of the prior art is that the nature of the design causes the popit pin to be difficult to withdraw or even become stuck. In attempting to withdraw the pin, the user must reach under the bench and pull the pin in a horizontal direction. This is a direction of pull in which the typical user is inherently weak.
Another problem with the popit pin is that, unless the pin is exactly aligned with the hole, the pin will not engage the hole so that the user must “fish around” the hole until the pin drops into the hole.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,287,243 B1 to Isom discloses a back support hinged to a seat support. Second hinge couples the back support to a base. Inclination of the back and seat support is selectable by adjusting an extendable brace propped between the backrest and base. The design inherently limits the amount of weight that is supportable by the head end of the back support.